Continuing his scrutiny of Japanese identity by scavenging the country’s past, Hikaru Fujii plans to conduct extensive archival research on the history of the brothels and collaborate with scholars from various disciplines related to the subject.
Hikaru Fujii
22 October - 23 December 2019
In November 2017, an article published by scholars from the Korean Women’s Development Institute shed new light on the conditions of “comfort stations” run by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Japanese occupation of Singapore (1942-45). The questionable term “comfort stations” refers to brothels, set up for the use of military personnel, which “employed” women abducted from countries under the Japanese rule (mostly Korea and China). The report estimates that, in Singapore, approximately 600 Korean women were forced into prostitution and it also revealed the existence of 52 records about them in the Oral History Centre at the National Archives of Singapore. Official accounts surrounding this infamous practice are still a matter of controversy and diplomatic friction between Japan and the other countries involved. Continuing his scrutiny of Japanese identity by scavenging the country’s past, Hikaru Fujii plans to conduct extensive archival research on the history of the brothels and collaborate with scholars from various disciplines related to the subject.
